


It's Not a Wonderful Life

by KouriArashi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (as in there's an AU inside the fic, Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Post-Nogitsune, Stilinski Family Feels, Survivor Guilt, not that the fic itself is an AU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8821705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KouriArashi/pseuds/KouriArashi
Summary: In the wake of Allison's death, Stiles makes a wish that's overheard by a kitsune and erases himself from the world ... but not everything is as simple as it seems.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends and neighbors! This was very loosely inspired by the "Stiles gets erased" in season 6. Takes place directly after 3B. Basically it's just buckets of post-nogitsune Stiles angst. You can read it as Sterek, or just as Stiles & Derek friendship, either way works.
> 
> Really no warnings beyond what's in the tags: death, grief, survivor's guilt, lots of people really upset about Stiles disappearing, et cetera.
> 
> (Apparently Sheriff Stilinski's first name is Noah in canon? Or so Linden Ashby has said? LOL, I'm just gonna keep using Tom ...)
> 
> It's kind of long but no matter how I divided it up into chapters, it felt wrong to me, so I decided to post the entire thing at once. Enjoy!

 

It’s been seven days since Allison’s death, and Stiles can feel the way things are sliding back into some gruesome parody of normal. He’s expected to get up, shower, eat food, even go to school. Like a world where Allison is dead is okay. Even Scott is trying to get behind that, saying things like, “She wouldn’t want us to mourn forever.” Stiles knows that’s true but can’t figure out how to actually apply it to his life. Can he just stop mourning? Is that a thing that people are even capable of?

What’s the purpose of grief, anyway? Did humans learn to grieve because then they would protect their remaining family and friends more fiercely? That might have been true a few millennia ago, but Stiles doesn’t think it really helps now. They’re already trying their hardest. It already wasn’t enough.

It’s late, and he’s been trying to sleep, but he knows it’s not going to happen. He’s barely slept since Allison’s death, since the nogitsune has been recaptured. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees Allison dying, hears Lydia screaming.

He isn’t the one who killed her, and he knows that, but it doesn’t matter. He can still remember the things he did as the nogitsune, remember how powerful and confident he felt. He had never felt like that before, and he certainly won’t ever feel like it now.

Deaton has talked with him in depth about how the nogitsune was too powerful for Stiles’ mind to fight off. But Stiles can’t help but think that if Scott or Allison had been possessed, they would have been able to do it. He thinks back to the little changes he made, the way he did manage to outfox the fox on at least a few occasions. Why couldn’t he have done that from the beginning? Why couldn’t he have fought harder, and won?

None of it matters now, though, because Allison is dead. None of them will ever be the same, none of them will ever be okay again, as far as Stiles can tell.

He just wishes that none of this had happened.

“Do you?” a voice says, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. His head jerks around to where there’s a fox sitting on his windowsill, black with gold eyes, giving him an assessing gaze.

“The fuck,” he says, which is about all his muddled brain can come up with. “Who the fuck are you?”

The fox jumps down from the window and then hops onto his bed instead. “I’ve had a lot of names,” it says, and Stiles assumes it’s telepathic or something because its mouth isn’t moving. But he can still hear the voice as clear as day, feminine and friendly.

“What – what are you doing here?” Stiles asks. His hand grips his phone as he thinks about calling Scott or his father or somebody.

“You called me,” the fox says.

“And I did that how exactly?” Stiles asks, eyes narrowing.

“I am a spirit kitsune,” the fox explains. “After what happened with the nogitsune, your spirit is intrinsically connected to the world. You made a wish so strong that it brought me to you. I have the power to grant that wish.”

“Well, that just seems too good to be true,” Stiles says.

“Perhaps. But after all you’ve witnessed, could you truly say that it’s impossible?”

Stiles hesitates. He knows he shouldn’t be making decisions right now. That he’s sleep deprived and probably dehydrated and that he’s been through every wringer ever invented. But he has to ask at least one question. “You . . . you could bring Allison back?”

“I can change the world, little fox. I can change the fabric of existence. Bringing back one human is well within my reach.”

It takes Stiles a long minute to process that. He rubs both hands through his hair. “I can’t trust you.”

“What is there to trust?” the fox asks. “Either your Wish is granted, or it isn’t.”

“Yeah, but I read the Monkey’s Paw, I know how this goes. My wish will have some horrible unintended consequences and I’ll be eight hundred times worse off than before.”

The fox chuffs. A moment later, Stiles finds himself holding onto a piece of metal, about six inches long, sleek and black and strangely beautiful. “To restore reality to what it once was, all you need do is break the tail that powers the Wish,” the fox says. “You can keep that. If the Wish’s consequences aren’t to your liking, break it.”

Stiles studies the metal for a minute before looking up. “You swear? Breaking the tail would bring things back to the way they used to be?”

“I swear it to you on all my tails,” the kitsune says.

Stiles thinks about that. He knows that some kitsune are good. Kira is good, and so is her mother. Not every supernatural creature is automatically bad. And like she says, if he makes a wish and she doesn’t grant it, no harm, no foul. Still, he forces himself to think through all the consequences. “Okay, but what if the unintended consequence is that I die? Then how could I break the tail?”

“Even if you in the Wish is dead, you, as you are now, will still exist. With your memories and experiences intact. How could you enjoy the results of your Wish, if otherwise?”

“What if I ran into my other self?” Stiles asks.

The kitsune’s tail brushes back and forth. “There will be no other you. Only you. Memories of your life as it was, both with and without your Wish.”

Stiles has already stopped worrying about it as soon as the question leaves his mouth. It’s made him realize what his Wish should be. It’s obvious, in retrospect. He’s the reason all this happened. He’s the one who dragged Scott out into the woods that night and then left him there. He’s the one who started all this. Not even going into the fact that he’s the one the nogitsune possessed, he’s the reason Allison is dead. There’s no reason for him to be left standing. Everything would be so much better without him.

“You’ve thought of your Wish,” the kitsune says. She sounds pleased with him.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for him. “I wish I had never been born.”

The kitsune’s eyes gleam gold. “Done.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Nothing looks different in the new reality, and Stiles has to admit he’s relieved. It’s not like he thought of himself as some irreplaceable building block, but he’s seen enough science-fiction to know how changing one small thing can cause a cascade of differences. He’s clutching the kitsune’s tail tightly in one hand as he walks through the streets.

It’s just about sunrise, now. He hadn’t realized how late it had gotten while he had been up in his room, wishing for change hard enough to accidentally summon a fox. The streets of Beacon Hills are quiet. There’s a layer of mist on the ground which he stirs with his feet as he walks.

The spell had deposited him at the Nemeton, which he supposes isn’t surprising. It’s taken him about an hour to walk back into town. He heads for his house, although he supposes it’s not really his anymore. The absolute first thing on the agenda is seeing that his father is happy and healthy. If he isn’t, Stiles is going to snap that kitsune tail without a second thought.

The house looks normal. The mailbox still says ‘Stilinski’. Stiles takes a moment to wonder if his father is happy without kids. He supposes his wish didn’t prevent his parents from having other children. Maybe there’s somebody else who was born on his exact date of birth and just isn’t him.

The metaphysics are starting to make his head hurt. On the upside, the Sheriff’s cruiser is parked in the driveway, so his father is still the sheriff.

He ducks around the side of the house to see if he can get a glimpse of his father inside. It’s early, but his father has always been an early riser. He doesn’t see him in the living room, but he _does_ see a variety of things that belong to kids younger than he is. There’s a stuffed elephant on the sofa and several kids’ books scattered around the room. His breath catches in his throat. His mother. Hasn’t he always known, somehow, that he was responsible for her death? Hasn’t he –

A woman walks into the room, stopping his thoughts in their tracks. It’s not Claudia Stilinski. It’s Melissa McCall.

After a moment to catch his breath, Stiles realizes it’s not actually that surprising. If his mother had died – if that truly hadn’t been his fault – then he can see his father wanting to remarry. He knew a large part of the reason his father had never dated after his mother’s death was because he was afraid that Stiles would get upset. Without Stiles in the picture –

Stiles closes his eyes and leans against the wall of the house. Without him in the picture, his father found love again. That was great, at least in this universe. He doesn’t want to think too much about how much his father had suffered in his own. He had fixed it. He had fixed everything.

A few minutes later, the Stilinsk-McCalls are having breakfast. Scott still has the same floppy hair that Stiles remembers from the beginning of their sophomore year, and it makes him smiles despite himself. Melissa is dressed in scrubs, and his father is wearing his sheriff’s uniform. There are two younger children, one about six and one who looks like he’s a toddler.

Stiles stands in the backyard like a creeper and watches them have breakfast with tears streaming down his face. After a long minute, he manages to turn away. It’s time to find Allison.

It’s a busy day at Beacon Hills High. School is starting by the time that Stiles gets there, and it’s loud and chaotic as usual. Stiles isn’t sure of exactly where he needs to go. On the upside, he looks like a lot less of a creeper here. Nobody really gives him the side-eye. Anyone who realizes they’ve never seen him before will just assume he’s a new student.

As he walks the hallways, he’s starting to get an uneasy feeling in his stomach about how exactly he’s going to handle this. He doesn’t exist in this universe. He was never born. He has no social security number, no birth certificate, none of the things someone would need to get a job, make money. How is he going to survive?

He supposes that there are possibilities. He could go to the ER and pretend to be in one of those fugue states that make people forget everything. He’s still a minor, albeit barely – they would probably take care of him, at least long enough to give him some sort of identity that he could use later. Or he could go to Deaton, who surely knows about kitsunes, and tell him how he wound up there with nothing but a name.

Even so, the thought makes him vaguely queasy. He can survive, sure, but the idea of watching Scott, his father, his friends – being stuck on the outside looking in his entire life – it’s a little bit horrifying. They won’t know him. He can’t just walk into their lives. Besides, the whole point is that they’re better off without him. He probably shouldn’t even stay in Beacon Hills. He can hitchhike down to San Francisco. People might ask fewer questions there.

He’s thinking about that when he sees Allison.

She looks great, as amazing as ever, dressed in a loose purple top and a black skirt. Her hair tumbles down her back in waves, and she’s smiling as she jogs up the school’s front steps and says hello to Lydia. The redhead also looks happy and healthy as she greets her friend. Stiles just stares at them for a minute as they turn and go into the school.

Everything’s okay. He fixed everything.

The tension floods out of his body and he just sits down on the sidewalk, right where he’s standing. There’s no danger here, no darkness, no unhappiness. He fixed everything. They’re all going to be okay. He’ll find a way to survive, somehow, stay and keep an eye on them from behind the curtain, make sure nothing goes wrong. He slides the kitsune’s tail into his pocket. He’ll have to find a safe place to store it, because he certainly isn’t ever going to need it.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Tom Stilinski supposes that his son sleeping soundly is something he should be grateful for. It certainly beats the screaming nightmares, and God knows that Stiles looked like he could use some sleep. Still, when he hasn’t seen hide or hair of his son as noon approaches, he decides to go get him up for the day. Stiles can take a week or even two weeks off from school as far as Tom’s concerned, but he doesn’t want him to get too used to sleeping the day away.

All those thoughts vanish from his head the instant he walks into the bedroom and sees Stiles sprawled out on the floor, fully dressed. Granted, it’s not entirely unheard of for Stiles to sleep in odd places or in odd positions, but something about the way Stiles is crumpled in a heap sends his father into instant panic mode. He’s on his knees beside Stiles before he’s even fully comprehending what he’s looking at.

“Stiles, hey, Stiles, kiddo,” he says, shaking Stiles by the shoulder. Stiles doesn’t respond, and now the panic really sets in. Stiles has always been a light sleeper. Tom shakes him harder, then rolls him onto his back. His eyes are closed, and his body is limp and cold. Tom presses his fingers into Stiles’ throat, acting on automatic reflex, and feels a heartbeat. Some of the panic eases away, but not much of it. “Stiles, wake up, look at me - damn it, Stiles - ”

When Stiles still doesn’t respond, Tom reaches for the radio on his shoulder with hands that shake. “Dispatch, this is Sheriff Stilinski - I need a bus at the following address - ” He knows to be specific, knows that he has to be professional if he wants help as quickly as possible. “Teenaged male found unresponsive - ”

It could be drugs, the logical side of his brain supplies. He can see Stiles using drugs in the aftermath of the nogitsune. Or it could be something medical - an aneurysm, a heart arrhythmia - there are lots of possibilities, and he shouldn’t make assumptions about what’s happening. But there’s a dull feeling at the pit of his stomach which tells him that it isn’t any of those things. That whatever’s wrong with his son is much, much deeper than that.

His training takes over. He checks Stiles’ airway, puts a pillow underneath his feet. As he moves him, one of Stiles’ arms sprawls out and his knuckles make a dull thumping sound on the floor. That draws Tom’s attention, and he realizes Stiles is holding something in his hand. It’s a piece of metal about the size of a knife, although without a sharp edge. It’s a matte black but has Japanese characters etched into each side.

Stiles doesn’t protest it being removed from his hand, doesn’t rouse in any way, and then the paramedics are there. A minute later, they have Stiles on a stretcher and they’re taking him to the hospital. Tom follows in the Cruiser. He thinks shock is taking over, which might be a good thing. It allows him to think clearly.

He decides against calling Scott or anyone else until he has a better idea of what’s happening. The first few hours at the hospital cement his opinion that this is supernatural. All the testing comes back normal. EKG and MRI look fine. His EEG shows some decreased alpha waves, but nothing so dramatic that it looks like he’s in a coma. He just won’t wake up. There’s no medical reason why, the somewhat stressed looking doctor tells Tom. He just doesn’t.

Tom thinks about calling Scott, but calls Deaton instead. The veterinarian arrives at the hospital about twenty minutes later, just after Melissa has showed Tom into the room that Stiles has been given. They have an IV in him to keep him hydrated, but he doesn’t need a respirator. He’s breathing on his own. Just sleeping, for no reason.

Deaton frowns a little when he sees Stiles’ unconscious body, checks his pulse and lifts an eyelid to look at his pupils. Tom hands him the piece of metal he found Stiles clutching, and a frown crosses over Deaton’s face.

“Have you talked to Scott?” he asks, and Tom shakes his head. “You’d better call him. I need to talk to Noshiko, and I think we’ll want Scott here for this.”

“Noshiko.” Tom looks at the Japanese text. “Can you read this?”

“I know a little Japanese. One side says ‘wish’ and the other says ‘dream’. I think I might know what’s happened to Stiles, but I need to consult the expert before I say for sure.”

“Okay.” Tom forces himself not to grab Deaton and shake until answers fall out. He calls Scott and doesn’t tell him much, just that Stiles is at the hospital and they want him to get Kira and her mother and bring them there. Then he goes to get himself a cup of coffee. On impulse, he gets two, setting one down beside Stiles’ bed as if the smell might wake him.

Noshiko’s response to the piece of metal is a little like Deaton’s, but more pronounced. Her eyes fall shut and her face creases like she’s in pain. “This is a kitsune tail.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Deaton says.

Scott looks between the two of them. “Most - most kitsunes are good, though, right? Why would a kitsune have hurt Stiles?”

“It didn’t. Not technically.” Noshiko sighs. “My guess is that this tail belongs to a seishin yako - a trickster. And I don’t think it targeted Stiles. I think Stiles called upon it. That’s the only reason he would have the tail. He made a Wish.”

“Meaning?” Tom asks, his voice tight.

“Seishin Yako grant wishes - in a way. It could have been something simple, like, ‘I wish Allison hadn’t died’ or ‘I wish the nogitsune hadn’t possessed me’. Or it could have been something much more large scale, and given how Stiles seems to think, my guess is the latter. He could have wished werewolves don’t exist, or something along those lines. Something that would really change the fabric of reality.”

Scott frowns. “Well, uh, I still exist, so . . .”

Noshiko nods and sighs. “Stiles misunderstood the yako’s purpose - as have many, over the centuries. Yako say they’re changing things. That they’re granting wishes. But it’s an illusion, a trick. Stiles is in that universe now, that he wished for - but only inside his mind. He lives there now, and he fully believes that it’s real, that the universe really did change.”

“Jesus,” Tom says, rubbing a hand over his face. “I knew he was upset about what happened, of course he was, but - but to summon a trickster to fix it - ”

“We don’t know that he did it intentionally,” Noshiko says. “After what happened with the nogitsune, Stiles would be much more connected to the spiritual world. If he wished loud enough, the yako would find him.”

“Well, how do we wake him up?” Scott looks down at Stiles. “Break the tail, right?”

“Yes, and no,” Noshiko says. She holds up the piece of metal and says, “This isn’t the real tail. It’s a representation, an artifact left behind. Stiles himself has the real thing - on the inside, with him. And the only way the spell will be broken will be if he breaks it himself.”

Tom blinks. “But . . . he has no reason to do that.”

“I know,” Noshiko says. “Whatever wish he made, the yako will be sure to create a world with all the pleasant consequences that Stiles would have wanted. Everyone will be safe and happy there, and as Stiles has no idea that what he’s seeing is just an illusion, he’ll never break the tail himself. The yako knows this. It will use Stiles’ energy to pour power into that tail, perhaps even create a new one for itself, and when Stiles runs out of energy, he will die.”

Scott goes pale. “But - he can’t, I mean, after everything that’s happened - there must be _something_ we can do.”

“How long?” Deaton asks quietly.

“It depends on the scale of the Wish. A small Wish is easy to grant and the victims can therefore linger a long time, months, even years. Larger Wishes are more difficult to create, require more energy to maintain, and thus drain the victim faster.”

“Then we have to know what he wished for,” Tom says. “How do we find out?”

“Can I go inside his head again?” Scott asks. “Like I did when he was possessed?”

“It would be inadvisable,” Noshiko says. “Whatever his Wish was, it’s likely that you were a central part of it. Checking on you would be one of the first things he would have done. If he runs into real you, instead of dream-you, it could cause the dream to collapse.”

“And that’s bad?” Scott asks. “I mean, he wouldn’t just wake up if that happens?”

“No.” Noshiko closes her eyes in sorrow. “No, he would never wake up if that happens. His mind would be completely destroyed.”

“I think there might be a spell I can use,” Deaton says, “to at least see what he’s seeing. Give me a few hours.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Avoiding his father turns out to be a little more difficult than expected, mainly because Stiles gets picked up by the police on day three.

It’s not really his fault. He’s rooting around in a dumpster behind the grocery store, and apparently someone calls the cops on him. This annoys him on general principle. Surviving on the streets is hard enough without nosy people who are ignorant about the law doing shit like that. Beacon Hills has a soup kitchen, but he’s afraid that people there will ask questions, so he’s been avoiding it. Dumpster diving is surprisingly fruitful. He knows that some people actually live off of it, that stores throw away tons of food that’s still technically good. It’ll do, at least until he comes up with some sort of plan. It’s too cold to sleep outside, so he’s been hiding out in the high school. One thing that his non-existence has not improved is Beacon Hills High security.

When the police officer comes into the alley, Stiles freezes. It’s Parrish, who calls over, “Hey, come on out of there.”

“Uh, sure,” Stiles says, climbing out of the dumpster.

“What’s your name?” Parrish asks, and Stiles shrugs. “Got ID?”

Stiles knows the drill far better than most homeless citizens, and he immediately responds, “Am I being detained, officer, or am I free to go?”

Parrish’s eyes narrow. “No trespassing sign on the alley. Didn’t see it?”

Stiles inwardly curses. If he’s actually trespassing, then he’s on much shakier legal ground. “I don’t have ID, officer.”

“What’s your name?”

Stiles reflects for a moment that he really should have thought of this, because it’s not like he can throw around the last name Stilinski without a lot of uncomfortable questions. He can’t use his first name, either, because if the report gets to the sheriff, he’ll surely notice that it’s his father-in-law’s first name. He says the first thing that pops into his head. “Wade Wilson.”

“Okay. Why don’t you come on down to the station where we can ask you a few questions?” Parrish says. Stiles heaves a sigh but follows. At least Parrish isn’t slapping the cuffs on.

Ten minutes later, he’s sitting in the achingly familiar Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Station. He can’t even bring himself to look up as his father walks in. He’s afraid that he’ll start to cry, or say something stupid. Instead, he fixes his gaze on his hands. Sheriff Stilinski sits down across from him. “So,” he says, “why don’t you want to tell us your name, son?”

Stiles still doesn’t look up. “My name is Wade Wilson, sir.”

“You think I don’t know who Deadpool is?” Tom says, with a dry note of amusement in his voice. Stiles’ gaze flicks up despite himself. He’s surprised his father remembers that. He’s never liked comic books anywhere near as much as Stiles does. “Try again.”

“It, uh, it’s Mike,” Stiles mumbles, going for the most generic alias that comes to mind. “Mike Lewis.”

“Okay. Parrish said you don’t have any ID.”

“No, sir, I never got my license.”

“What’s your address?”

“I don’t have one.”

“That have something to do with why you’re digging around in the dumpsters behind the Kroger?” Tom asks.

Stiles fixes his gaze on his hands. “Well, I like to eat, and I don’t have a job, because it’s hard to get a job when you don’t have things like ID and an address, so yeah. I guess you could say it has something to do with it.”

“How old are you, son?”

“Eighteen,” Stiles says.

Tom’s eyes narrow, but he decides not to push the issue. “Where are your parents?”

“Mom died when I was eight. Never knew my dad.” The words stick in Stiles’ throat, but he forces them out. His mind is already racing two or three steps ahead, plotting out why he doesn’t exist, what he can possibly say. “She was part of this weird cult when I was born, so it wasn’t at a hospital. Never got a social security number or anything like that. We left before I can remember. Bounced around. After she died, I wound up in the system. The, uh, the group home I wound up in was . . . not a great place. So I left. That was about four years ago.” Stiles rubs a hand over the back of his head. “I was down in San Francisco up until about a month ago. But, uh, some guys were getting pushy with me so I decided to just hitchhike north and see what I found.”

“Mm hm.” Tom is giving him a considering look. “That sounds an awful lot like a Lifetime movie, son.”

That shouldn’t sting, since Stiles _is_ telling a huge string of lies, but it does. “I guess I’ll call them and see if I’m due any royalties.”

At this, one corner of Tom’s mouth quirks upwards. “Okay, son, I’ll tell you what. Steer clear of the Kroger, because that’s trespassing, but as you probably are aware, dumpster diving is technically legal in California so I can’t stop you from doing that. I’m not going to press charges for the trespassing, but in return, you’re going to come home and have dinner with me and my family so I can be sure you get a square meal.”

“Uh, I can’t really . . .” Stiles’ voice trails off. Having dinner with his father and his new family is the last thing he wants to do. He’s supposed to be staying away from them. It’s safer for them that way. Besides, it’ll be hellishly awkward. But Tom is giving him a look which means he’s not going to get out of this. “Thank you, sir.”

Another twenty minutes after that, and he’s riding home – it’s not home, but he can’t help but think of it that way – in the police cruiser. Tom asks him a few questions, like whether or not he ever went to high school, does he know if his mother had any relatives. Stiles keeps his answers brief and uninformative.

“Honey, we’ve got a guest for dinner,” Tom calls as he heads into the house, and suddenly Stiles can’t do this anymore. He can’t walk through that door and see all the ways the house is different, can’t meet the two young children his father would have had in his own universe if it weren’t for him, can’t look Scott in the eye and have Scott not recognize him. While Tom is focused on whatever Melissa is saying from inside, Stiles takes a few quick steps backwards and then bolts.

“Hey – hey, Mike!” he hears his father call out after him, but then he’s vaulted the back fence and he’s in the woods, running as fast as he can.

He doesn’t stop until almost five minutes later. He’s hopelessly lost and freezing cold, but he’s alone. It’s the most alone he’s ever been. He sits down on the ground right where he’s standing, presses his face into his hands, and struggles desperately not to cry.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It’s not until that evening that Deaton has put together what he needs. With Melissa’s help, Tom has gotten Stiles out of the hospital and back into bed at home, where nobody will be able to ask any questions. The others have gathered now – Kira mentioned what was going on to Lydia, who had come over, and somehow Derek had found out, too. The group of them huddle together in the Stilinskis’ living room while Deaton does his magic.

When he comes downstairs, his face is so grim that Tom’s heart skips a beat. “Is he – all right?”

“No change in his condition,” Deaton assures him. “But his Wish was . . . extensive. I’ve spoken with Noshiko and we don’t think he’ll be able to hold on longer than a week.”

“What was it?” Scott asks.

Deaton gives a quiet little sigh. “He Wished that he didn’t exist. That he had never been born.”

The room falls silent. Tom sinks into a chair, feeling his heart breaking in his chest. He had known that Stiles was upset, of course Stiles was upset, but to Wish _that_? He felt like he had failed on every level.

It’s Scott who clears his throat and says, “Um. Why? I mean . . . why?”

“Because he thinks that it was his fault.” It’s Derek who speaks, quiet and melancholy. “He thinks that if he didn’t exist, you wouldn’t have been bitten, nobody would have been hurt, Allison wouldn’t have died. I know how he feels. Survivor’s guilt is . . . it can be really hard to deal with. Especially if it has even the _slightest_ piece of legitimate blame to spring from.”

“But how can he think we would be happy without him?” Scott asks. “How can he think that would be better?”

“It’s not like he wished he had died,” Lydia says. “I mean, if he wishes he had never existed, you, we, wouldn’t know any better. We can’t miss someone we’ve never known.”

Tom finally manages to speak, looking up at Deaton. “How bad is it?”

“As bad as you’d imagine,” Deaton says. “You’re happy, Scott’s happy. Allison’s alive and happy. I can say with ninety-nine percent confidence that Stiles is never going to break himself out of this.”

“But there must be something we can do,” Scott says. “We can’t just let him die. After he wished – ” His voice cracks. “He wished he wasn’t here anymore to save us. We can’t let him die.”

Deaton lets out a breath. “There might be a way. I was discussing it with Noshiko. We agree that the probability of success is low, and on top of that, it would be extremely dangerous for whoever does it. But it’s an idea, which is that someone has to go inside the vision and try to talk to Stiles there. Try to convince him to break the tail _without_ telling him that the new world isn’t real.”

“Yes, sure, of course,” Scott says immediately.

Tom is a little more hesitant. “You said that Scott and I couldn’t go in. That just us being there would make the vision collapse.”

“That’s correct. It would have to be someone he hasn’t met yet, someone whose presence we could manipulate into a useful setting. Now, I don’t think – ”

“I’ll go,” Derek interrupts. Everyone looks at him, but he’s looking at Deaton. “Has he seen me yet?”

“No,” Deaton says. “I think subconsciously, he probably figured you wouldn’t even be in Beacon Hills.”

“Good.” Derek nods. He sees that everyone is staring at him. “I might not be Stiles’ favorite person in the world, and I don’t know that I can convince him to come back. But I know how he feels better than anyone else in this room. I know what it’s like to think everything is my fault, to think that if only I didn’t exist, nothing bad would have happened.” He swallows hard and says, “I can at least try.”

Tom nods. He rubs a hand over his face and then says, “Yeah. Yeah, Derek, you – you probably are the best equipped out of all of us to – to understand what he’s going through. But. That’s – that’s my son, Derek. My _son_. Please bring him back to me.”

Derek nods again. “I’ll do everything I can.” He turns to Deaton. “How does this work?”

“It’s similar to when Scott and Lydia went into his mind while he was possessed,” Deaton says. “Only instead of the nogitsune controlling the landscape, the yako is. But the reason this works is because the landscape is malleable. Noshiko says that the yako would only put in place what Stiles had directly imagined. The rest of the world is sort of . . . like a fill-in-the-blanks puzzle. We’re going to sneak into one of those blanks and put you there.”

“Okay,” Derek says. “So I can talk to him, interact with him, but I can’t tell him that what he’s seeing isn’t real.”

Deaton nods. “According to Noshiko, that would cause instability which would eventually lead to the vision collapsing. It’s something that could take seconds, minutes, or hours, all depending on how Stiles handles it.”

“And historically, Stiles hasn’t been handling things too well,” Tom murmurs.

“So if we’re filling in the blanks, I can choose what sort of setting I’m in, right?” Derek asks.

“Yes. And it’s important that you picture it very clearly, with as much detail as possible. Once it’s there and Stiles has interacted with you, it cannot be changed. So take some time to think about it.”

“I’ll need him to trust me,” Derek says, thinking this over. “I can’t just invite him back to live with me, that’ll make him suspicious. I need a business. Okay. I can do that.” His gaze has gone opaque as he drifts into thought. “What do we know about Stiles’ current circumstances? I mean, if nobody knows him, if he doesn’t technically exist . . .”

“Your assumptions are correct,” Deaton says. “He’s living on the streets.”

“Shit,” Tom says wearily.

“That’s actually good,” Derek says. “It gives me an excuse to help him, to interact with him, when I’m not supposed to know him.”

“One other thing,” Deaton says. “Time moves faster in the dream, because everything happens at the speed of thought. There’s no clunky meatsuit to get in the way and slow things down. The yako visited Stiles sometime during the night, but as far as I can tell, he’s already been inside the vision for what would come to several days, maybe even a week.”

“Oh my God, he’s been homeless for a week?” Scott blurts out.

“This is also good,” Deaton says, squeezing Stiles’ shoulder. “Derek has an estimated five to seven days to get through to Stiles, but that’s in our time. That gives him several weeks if not months inside the vision. That means he can take it slow, which is going to be important, if we want to maintain the integrity of the dream.”

“What happens to my body while I’m out here?” Derek asks. “Same as his, I guess?”

“Yes. We’ll have to hook you up to an IV, catheter, et cetera.”

“Good times,” Derek says, and Lydia gives a snort of laughter despite herself.

“I can’t stand with my claws in their necks for a week,” Scott says.

“That’s okay. We’ll be using a different spell to put Derek in the vision, using the talisman that the yako left behind.”

“Okay.” Scott breathes out a sigh of relief, but looks at Derek somewhat skeptically. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” Derek says, without hesitation. “He’d do it for me. For any of us.”

Lydia reaches out to Stiles and squeezes his hand. “Yeah,” she says softly. “I guess that’s the problem.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Derek can remember after he and Laura moved to New York, how she would go out looking for a job and she left him, fifteen and traumatized and barely verbal, in a used bookstore. She was friends with the owner’s daughter, someone she had met in college. Derek spent days, weeks, curled on a sofa in the back reading, separated from the world, safe from it.

It’s that bookstore that he pictures now, as Deaton is painstakingly drawing symbols on the walls around them. They’ve moved into Sheriff Stilinski’s room, because he’s got a queen-sized bed which will fit both of them, and he’s lying on that bed next to Stiles. His fingers are laced together with Stiles’, with the yako’s representative tail clutched between them. That’s what will get him into Stiles’ world, Deaton has said. He can feel the metal in his hand, but he’s not really thinking about it. Every brain cell is focused on remembering that bookstore.

It let out into an alley. Derek can’t remember what was around it, but he knows where homeless people will congregate, where he’ll be able to make contact with Stiles. He pictures the bookstore being sandwiched between a bakery and a convenience store, on Beacon Hills’ main street. They’ll share the dumpsters out back, and Stiles has to be getting his food from somewhere.

He remembers the thick, still air of the bookshelf, the scent of it, the crackling of the pages underneath his fingers. Tries to hear the leather of his favorite sofa creaking underneath his weight. The bookstore had had two cats, strays that called the stacks home. He can remember them, too, a long-haired black and white named Charlie who was shy and an orange tabby who was friendly. He can’t remember the tabby’s name, so he decides to call him Sunkist.

“Are you ready?” Deaton asks. Everyone else has left. Derek deserved some privacy while Deaton was getting everything set up, Deaton had said. But truthfully, there’s really no one there to see him off. The others are anxious, but their anxiety is for Stiles, not for Derek. He’s okay with that, or at least no less okay with it than he has been in the past.

“Yeah,” Derek says.

“You’ve got the image in your head?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Just focus on that. If we do this right, you won’t even notice the difference when you open your eyes.”

Derek is sure that Deaton is exaggerating, but the slide into the dreamscape _is_ much gentler than he would have expected. He feels a sensation akin to the floor dropping out from underneath him, and when his eyes snap open, he’s standing in the bookstore. It’s just like he remembers it.

He walks up and down the aisles, running his fingers along the shelves, feeling the wooden floors shift under his feet. It’s _so real_. He had thought, knowing that it was just a vision, that there would be some separation, some vague feeling of unreality. But it feels just like normal life.

The store is empty. He finds the keys in a drawer behind the desk. He’s glad he doesn’t have to worry too much about whether or not the store is successful. He supposes nobody besides Stiles will show up, since nobody besides Stiles is real. He’s still not sure how the mechanics of this world work, though he supposes he’ll find out the first time he orders pizza.

For now, he has more important things to do.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles stares at the sign taped to the dumpster for a long minute. It hadn’t been there the day before, but it’s there now, and it reads: ‘To the kid rooting around in the dumpsters – come into the bookstore for a PB&J. You’re worth more than a meal made out of trash.’

Part of him has the impulse to just scrawl ‘no, I’m really not’ on the sign, but on the other hand, he _is_ really hungry. He knows enough about dumpster diving that he’s not really in danger of starving, but the simple prospect of a sandwich has his mouth watering. He supposes that it can’t do any harm. Besides, if the guy in the bookstore has noticed, other people will, too. He doesn’t want someone calling the cops on him again.

That being decided, he goes over to the bookstore. He hadn’t really noticed it before, probably because the sign is kind of dark and it’s squashed between the much more relevant bakery and convenience store that have been supplying a lot of his meals. He cracks open the door and eases inside, hoping there are no customers.

There aren’t, and the store is a little dusty, like it doesn’t get them often. It’s the best kind of used bookstore, with books stacked on every surface and clutter everywhere. He sees a few crates of old vinyl records off to one side, and several plush chairs by the window.

Then he looks over at the desk, and his heart leaps into his throat, because Derek Hale is the one standing behind it. He hadn’t really expected that Derek would still be in Beacon Hills. Why would he? Hell, why would he want to be? But there he is. At least, like the others, he looks healthy. He’s only got some stubble instead of the impressive beard of sorrow he had been nursing lately. He’s wearing a dark green Henley and jeans.

Stiles’ immediate impulse is to slowly back out of the store, but Derek looks up and sees him before he can. “Hey, uh,” Stiles says, trying to find a polite way to say, ‘here I am, give me a sandwich’.

Derek just grunts, his usual level of communication apparently unchanged, and tosses him a brown paper bag. Stiles looks inside and sees not one but two sandwiches, along with a bag of veggie sticks, an apple, and even a couple cookies from the bakery next door. He tears into the first sandwich before he can think better of it. He hears a noise from the desk and looks over to see Derek setting down a bottle of water.

“Don’t get crumbs on the floor,” Derek says, and Stiles nods and sits down on the floor, dragging over a trash basket so he can eat over it.

He eats the entire meal in far less time than could be considered reasonable, downs the rest of the bottle of water, and drops it in the trash.

“Recycle,” Derek says, pointing to a blue bin in the corner. Stiles picks up the bottle and carries it over without complaint. Then Derek closes the book he’s been reading and looks up at him as if finally giving him his full attention. For a second, Stiles thinks he sees recognition on Derek’s face, maybe something like sorrow, and he freezes like a deer in headlights. But then Derek says, “What’s your name?” and Stiles relaxes.

“It, uh, it’s Stiles.” Shit, why did he say that? He should have gone with Wade again, or Bob, or anything other than his actual name. Then again, why shouldn’t he use it? Derek’s not a cop; he doesn’t need a legal name. It’s not like anyone here will recognize it.

“You run away from home?”

“None of your business,” Stiles says, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Uh huh. Got a place to sleep?”

“Of course I do,” Stiles lies.

Derek just gives him another hard look. “The shop closes at nine,” he finally says. “If you make it in here before then, you can crash on one of the sofas. If not, you’re out of luck, because I’m not giving you keys.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, and tries to think of how he can possibly respond to that. He wants to protest, but at the same time, the idea of sleeping on a couch in a bookstore is infinitely preferable to the cat naps he takes at the high school, always worried that the security officer would somehow find him. Especially if Derek isn’t going to ask him any questions. The real question, though, is why Derek would make that offer when Derek doesn’t even know him.

“In return, you’ll clean up around here,” Derek says, and Stiles relaxes a little. “Sweep every night, mop twice a week. Dust all the shelves and clean the windows. There’s two cats that live in the back; their litter boxes need to be cleaned every night. Plus they sometimes kill mice and leave their bodies lying around.”

“Charming,” Stiles says, despite himself.

Derek glowers at him, and Stiles feels okay for the first time in a week. “The wooden furniture needs to be polished twice a week and the upholstery vacuumed once a week. Bathroom needs to be cleaned every night. You don’t touch the money, and if you happen to be here during the day, don’t bother the customers. Understood?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says.

“I live above the shop, so if you need anything, you can come get me, but if you wake me after midnight it had better be for a damned good reason.”

“I won’t need anything,” Stiles tells him. But then he hesitates. Sleeping on a sofa sounds great, cleaning up around the shop seems fine, he can figure out food on his own. But there’s one thing he hasn’t figured out, and that’s how to stay clean. He smells rank and he knows it. He’s showered at the school a couple of times, but that doesn’t do much good when he only has one set of clothes. He brought them into the shower with him on the first night, but couldn’t get them dry before morning, and had nearly frozen to death the next day. Derek seems to be nice – which is more than a little weird, but okay – so he decides to risk it. “Can I, uh, can I use your shower, though? Maybe throw my clothes in the laundry?”

“Sure,” Derek says. “Have to wait until we close for the night, though. No offense but I don’t want you in my apartment if I’m not there.”

That seems completely reasonable to Stiles, and it’s already eight thirty, so he says, “Okay. I’ll get started on some of the cleaning stuff, I guess.”

“Dust, then sweep,” Derek tells him. He points and adds, “Closet back there is where you’ll find all the cleaning supplies.”

“Okay, cool.” Stiles heads into the back. He also finds a piece of paper and pencil in what looks like the break room. He makes a list of everything Derek told him to do. It’s not too bad. If he parcels it out evenly, it’ll only be an hour or two of work per night. It’ll at least be something to do, and it beats accepting charity.

He’s definitely going to need more clothes, though. He can’t wash the same outfit every day. He ponders that while he scoops out the litter boxes, then moves on to cleaning the bathroom.

By the time he’s done with that, it’s nine, and Derek is locking the front door. “When you’re done cleaning, just come up the spiral staircase. That’s where my apartment is. I’m always up until eleven or so, don’t worry about waking me.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, and starts cleaning the windows. When he leans over, the kitsune’s tail jabs him in the side and he suddenly remembers it exists. This is a good opportunity, really, a good place to hide it. He’ll have access basically all the time on the very off chance he’ll need it, and it’ll be safe here. No one will accidentally find it. After some internal debate while he cleans the windows, he slides it behind one of the dustier bookshelves.

Dusting takes longer than he would have expected – there are approximately a zillion shelves – but sweeping is pretty quick. He mops afterward, making himself a chart so he can keep track of which chores need to be done on which days. Then he heads up the stairs. Derek’s door is shut, and he almost just heads back down, but then he squares his shoulders and knocks.

“C’mon in,” Derek calls out, and the door is unlocked. Derek has already set out a towel and some spare clothes for him. “I’ll run your stuff through the washer but it won’t be dry before you want to go to sleep, so I’ll bring it down tomorrow.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Stiles heads into the shower. It feels amazing to get clean. He gives himself a thorough scrub and washes his hair and then dresses in Derek’s clothes. They’re a little too big for him, but not too bad. When he exits the bathroom, Derek is on the sofa, watching TV. “Uh. Thanks again. G’night,” Stiles says, and flees the apartment before Derek can say anything.

Downstairs, he finds a sofa in the back that Derek has put a blanket and a pillow on. It’s just barely long enough for him to lie down on. He’s been there less than a minute when something jumps on his feet and he nearly screams before remembering the cats. He sits up, eyeing the ginger tabby in the dim light. She curls up on top of his feet and delicately cleans her paws, already purring. Stiles lies back down and falls asleep within minutes.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles wakes up to the smell of coffee so strong and delicious that he thinks it’s giving him morning wood. He shakes off the last vestiges of sleep – he had slept long and hard, and his mind is still a little fuzzy – before looking at his watch. It’s eight thirty. On the table next to him are his clothes from the previous day. He glances around, sees no one, and quickly changes.

He finds Derek in the break room, with the coffee and a box from the bakery next door. Stiles looks at it and tries not to lick his lips. Dinner the previous day had been more than he’d eaten in one sitting in a week, but it was twelve hours ago. He’s hungry, but he’s also afraid to push. At least where breakfast is concerned. The coffee, he wants desperately enough to drink no matter what Derek thinks. He hasn’t been able to get any drinks besides tap water for the past week, and of course he doesn’t have his Adderall either, so the ADD has been making his fingers twitch and his skin crawl.

“Mugs?” he asks, then realizes how appalling his manners are. “Oh, uh, I mean, good morning. Thanks for, you know. Here’s your clothes back.”

Derek just nods, and then points to a cabinet. There’s a variety of mugs, most of them plain. Stiles fills one with coffee, takes a drink, and moans despite himself. Derek gives him a glance that looks amused. “If you’re hungry, there’s croissants.”

“Oh my God,” Stiles says, unable to help himself. He flips the top open on the box and grabs the first one that comes to hand. When he’s done devouring it and has moved on to his second mug of coffee, he says, “What time does the shop open?”

“Nine. So in a few minutes.”

“Do you work here all by yourself?” Stiles asks, curious despite himself.

“Most days, yeah. It’s not too bad. Not like it’s a really happening place. I probably get a dozen customers per day, if that.” Derek refills his own mug and tops it off with way too much cream. “If I have an appointment or something, my sister Cora will come by and man the desk for me.”

So Cora’s alive and still around, which is interesting. Stiles wonders about Laura and Peter, but he can’t exactly ask. “Okay. It, uh, it’s okay if I’m around during the day? You don’t mind? Just in case of bad weather, I mean – ”

“I don’t care,” Derek interrupts. “And I forgot to tell you last night, but on Sundays we close at six, so you’ll have to be here early if you want to stay the night.”

“Oh. Okay.” Stiles considers this, then admits, “I have no idea what day it is.”

“It’s Thursday today.”

“Okay. Good to know.” Stiles hesitates, fidgeting, and then says, “Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even know me.”

Derek doesn’t answer for a moment. Then he says, “I’ve been where you are. Not living on the streets, just – in a place where literally nobody cared about what happened to me. So I know how much it sucks. There were days when I just wanted to scream at people to notice me, to help me, and – finally someone did. Now that I’m where I am, I’m not going to just ignore someone who needs help.”

Stiles nods, thinking back to everything that had happened in his own universe, wondering what it’s been like for Derek in this one. His curiosity is an itch he can’t scratch. “Well. Thanks. I mean, I don’t really deserve it. But I appreciate it.” He looks away, seeing the frown on Derek’s face. “I gotta go. Got stuff to do today. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you tonight I guess.”

Stealing isn’t exactly his idea of a good time, but he’s got to get used to the idea that he lives in this world now. Unless he just wants to roll over and die, there are things he’s going to need. Derek helping him out is a good start. He can stay in Beacon Hills, keep an eye on his father and Scott and everyone without them knowing about it.

At some point, he’s going to need actual money. Derek can provide room and board, but what he can’t provide is an identity. And Stiles can’t live the rest of his life without one. There are places to obtain that sort of thing, which he knows more about than his father would be comfortable with. But they don’t come cheap.

First things first. He walks back to the Stilinski-McCall house. At nine thirty on a Thursday, nobody should be home. He peeks in through the windows of the garage and sees no cars, so he rings the bell. Nobody answers.

He walks around the house and goes up to the back door. His father has never been the sort to keep a spare key outside, but Stiles manages to jimmy the lock (also a subject his father probably wishes he knew nothing about) and let himself in. He walks quietly, barely daring to breathe, but it looks like the house really is empty.

It’s not the preferred place to get clothes, but he’s not going to risk getting caught shoplifting and getting arrested for real. His story about being on the streets of San Francisco is pretty flimsy, and thirty seconds with a police officer’s computer would be enough to disprove several elements of it. So there are risks he can’t take.

Scott is about the same size as he is. Stiles jogs up to his room and takes a handful of T-shirts, boxers, and socks, digging down to the bottom of the drawers for things he doesn’t wear as often and might not notice are missing. He grabs a pair of jeans and tries them on to see if they’ll fit. They’re a little too short, but only by about an inch, so they’ll do. Then he grabs a sweatshirt. That’ll have to do, if he doesn’t want somebody asking a lot of uncomfortable questions. His father is no fool. He would definitely connect “house theft” with “homeless kid about the same size as my son who I showed where I live”.

He doesn’t really want to go back to the bookstore and spend all day there, so he’ll have to find somewhere to stash this stuff for now. At least the weather is good – it’s chilly, but sunny. He wraps the clothes up in some plastic bags he finds in the kitchen and slides them behind the dumpster he’s been getting a lot of his food from. Nobody will notice them, or if they do they’ll just assume it’s more trash.

By now, it’s nearing eleven, which is the most important time of the day. It’s the lunch hour at the high school, and time for him to go check on Scott and the others. He can’t attend classes, but in the cafeteria, he’s just a quiet kid that nobody really knows. It’s a chance for him to catch a few precious moments with his friends and make sure they’re okay.

He hovers nearby while they eat, listening to them talking and laughing. It’s never about important stuff. The latest lacrosse game, a chemistry test (Harris is a dick in every universe, it seems), the episode of Game of Thrones that was on over the weekend. Normal stuff.

When lunch is over, there’s always a precious few moments by the trash can when nobody’s paying attention and he can fish out some of the stuff people had thrown away. A few spare tater tots, half an apple that’s kind of bruised and grainy, the crust of their pizza. It’s gross, but it’ll keep him alive.

Then he takes off before anyone can see him. So far, he’s been scrounging around alleys for food. Now he thinks he can put his dumpster diving to a little better use. He’s not good enough with electronics to fix things up, but he knows that recycling places will pay for wire. He’s seen some old furniture and plenty of slightly-worn-but-perfectly usable toys, the kind of thing that he can clean up and sell on Craigslist. He doesn’t have a phone, of course, but he can use the computers at the library.

At least it’ll be something to do. Once he has enough money for a new identity, he can get a real job.

Everything’s going to be okay.

He fixed everything.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Derek looks up with a frown as Stiles comes in the door of the bookstore at about quarter past seven, laden down with bags. “What’s all that stuff?”

“Just some stuff I pulled together today,” Stiles says, and then suddenly looks uncertain. “Do you mind if I have things here? I’ll keep them in the supply closet with the cleaning stuff.”

“I don’t mind. I was just curious about what your haul was.”

“Mostly stuff I hauled out of dumpsters and am kind of hoping I can hawk on Craigslist. People throw away the craziest shit, you know? If you go through the dumpsters at a big apartment complex, there’s – I found a booster seat, a DVD player that may or may not work, a vacuum that totally does, and this cooler that’s totally fine except for a dent where they must have dropped it. Plus a bunch of smaller stuff.”

“Huh,” Derek says. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Stiles says. He hesitates for a long second, like he’s trying to figure out how to ask something.

“In the refrigerator,” Derek says. “I wasn’t sure when you’d get here and I couldn’t leave it sitting out like the PB&J.”

“Oh, thanks. Right.” Stiles manages a smile before jogging into the back. Derek goes back to his book. He had left two turkey sandwiches, an orange, and a bag of chips in a bag in the fridge for Stiles. He doesn’t know how much Stiles is getting to eat during the day, so he’s erring on the side of too much rather than too little.

He’s still surprised by how real this universe feels. Several people had come into the shop today, and some had made purchases. Was that because Stiles assumed people would? Derek doesn’t think that the other people in this universe are sentient in their own right. People that Stiles has interacted with, like his father, are acting in the way that Stiles would expect them to act. But the idea of a bunch of figments of Stiles’ imagination coming into his shop even though Stiles isn’t there to witness it is weird and frankly a little creepy.

Stiles seems to be settling in for the long haul, which makes sense. He has no idea his time here is limited, and Derek can’t tell him. So he’s trying to make his own life here. Derek wants to applaud that, but he has a feeling that Stiles’ plan to sell random crap on Craigslist isn’t going to be the money-maker he thinks it will be. Most of the things he brought in will sell for a few bucks, if that. More if he could deliver them, but unless it’s a reasonable distance, he can’t. Plus he won’t be able to respond to people quickly without a phone, and Derek knows from some experience of his own that people on Craigslist are very impatient.

He could help with that. Find a way to get Stiles a phone, maybe offer to let him borrow the car. Not right away, but in a couple weeks, once Stiles trusts him.

The thing is, he realizes, he shouldn’t. The impulse is to help Stiles, to make him happy here. But that would actually be counterproductive. His goal is to make Stiles want to return to the real world, and that’s never going to happen if things are going well for him here. The fact that Allison is alive in this universe is going to make it close to impossible anyway. There’s no reason to complicate things for himself.

So he’ll have to watch Stiles struggle and suffer, which is going to suck. And all he can do is offer a little meager support, a safe place to sleep and a friend he can talk to.

Derek sighs a little and goes back to his book. It’s not that he regrets making the offer, and he would do it again if he had to. But he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do this. How can he get through to Stiles without telling him what’s going on? Why would Stiles ever want to return to their own miserable universe if he doesn’t know that this one isn’t real?

He needs Stiles to talk to him about what happened, which means that he has to let Stiles know that he’s aware of the supernatural in this universe, that he’s still a werewolf. That’ll be easy enough. But then what?

One thing at a time, he reminds himself. First he needs to gain Stiles’ trust. He’ll worry about everything else after that.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

By the fourth day, Stiles is starting to get more than a little discouraged. He’s read stories on the internet about people who dumpster dive and find thousands of dollars of electronics still in their boxes, but nobody in Beacon Hills throws away anything like that. The only thing he’s managed to sell at all is the stupid vacuum, and they only gave him ten dollars for it. Nothing else has gotten him anywhere at all.

He thinks once or twice about just asking Derek for money. He obviously has plenty. The bookstore can’t make more than a couple hundred dollars a day, if that. It’s not enough to even stay in the red, let alone give Derek anything to live off of. He supposes that Derek has his inheritance money and that he’s living off of that.

He can’t just say, ‘Hey Derek, can you give me a few hundred bucks so I can buy an identity’, but he _does_ decide to risk a few questions about the finances of the store. It’s a cold, rainy day, and he’s not venturing out into it to try to scrounge around in dumpsters. The streets are pretty much empty, and nobody has come into the bookstore since a couple customers in the morning. Derek sits up at the desk, reading.

“So . . . why did you open a bookstore?” Stiles finally asks. He has to admit that he’s been curious about this. He’s seen Derek reading more than once, so it’s not exactly out of character for him, but settling down in Beacon Hills just seems a little weird.

Derek glances up from his book, then looks away. “My sister Laura always wanted to,” he says, and Stiles almost grimaces but remembers at the last second that he’s not supposed to know anything about Laura. Hell, maybe he doesn’t. He has no idea what happened to her in this universe. “We used to talk about it. She loved to read. After she died, I saw this place was up for sale, and it just . . . it felt like a sign.”

“Was it a bookstore when you bought it or just an empty building?”

“Just empty. Filling it up with books wasn’t hard. I just drove to every thrift store within a hundred mile radius and bought every book on their shelves. Had to work to get some variety, but I think it worked out pretty well. Started handing out coupons at the bakery next door and put in free wi-fi. It’s busier when the weather’s nice.”

“Yeah, ‘cause . . . it’s kinda dead now,” Stiles says.

Derek arches his eyebrows. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“No,” Stiles says quickly. “Maybe I was just curious about why you don’t have any actual staff, and so desperate for a janitor that you hired a homeless kid.”

At this, Derek shrugs. “I don’t . . . get along with people,” he says, and Stiles gives a snort of laughter. “I hired a couple people in the beginning but they always got on my nerves. I decided I liked it better when it was just me and sometimes Cora. I hate sweeping, though.”

“So Cora’s your other sister?” Stiles asks.

“Uh huh. She lives down in Santa Rosa. She’ll come up when I need her.” Derek puts a bookmark in his book and sets it down. “What about you? Got any family?”

Stiles looks away. “No.”

Derek’s quiet for a moment. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Stiles starts reading the spines of the books on the nearest shelf so he doesn’t have to look at Derek.

“Okay.” Derek picks up his own book, but doesn’t open it. “That reminds me, I’m not going to be around on Thursday night. Gonna have to close the store a bit early.”

“Oh, yeah?” Stiles is relieved at the subject change. “Why?”

“It’s the full moon,” Derek says. “Gotta go do werewolf stuff.”

Stiles nearly chokes on his own spit. “Dude! You can’t just say that! What if I hadn’t known that werewolves are a real thing? I would have thought you were crazy!”

Derek rolls his eyes, a real, classic Hale eye roll that makes Stiles ache for his own world a little. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d think I was being sarcastic. I’ve done that before and the response is usually something like ‘fine, don’t tell me’ or ‘is that the best lie you can come up with?’ People just think I’m giving them shit. But hey, you know about werewolves. Good for you. How’d that happen?”

“I, uh . . . it’s a long story,” Stiles says. “It doesn’t matter. So, what do you do for the full moon? Do you spend it with your sister?”

“Yeah. She comes up and we hang out in the preserve.”

“Are you her alpha?” Stiles asks hesitantly, thinking about everything that had happened in Beacon Hills.

“God, no. I’d be a terrible alpha,” Derek says, and Stiles has to bite back a smile. “No, we’re both betas. We don’t have an alpha.”

Stiles wonders what happened to Peter, but knows he can’t ask. “And, uh, it’s just the two of you? Werewolfing together?”

“Yeah.” Derek gives him a funny look. “Why?”

“Nothing, I was just curious,” Stiles says, hastily turning back to the bookshelf. “So you don’t have to have an alpha, huh?”

“Not really. It makes your pack more powerful, but it’s not a prerequisite. I just do my best to stay out of trouble and it’s not a big deal.”

Stiles reminds himself that he needs to stay on task. “Does it bother you that the bookstore isn’t more successful?”

“No. It’s a new business. This sort of thing takes time.” Derek gives Stiles a look, and Stiles has the sudden uncomfortable feeling that Derek knows exactly why he’s asking these questions. “I’m not worried about losing money, if you’re worried about losing your job when I close down. I have plenty.”

“Oh, I’m not . . .” Stiles flushes pink and turns away. “I’ll just go over here now.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Derek’s not surprised to find that he can’t actually go spend the full moon with Cora. Actually, he can’t leave Beacon Hills at all. A couple miles out of town, things start to get foggy, blurry. There are limits to the yako’s universe. He’s sure that if Stiles himself left Beacon Hills, the universe would fall into place, but as long as he’s there, the borders will stay in place.

That’s fine by him. He stays in a hotel that night so as not to arouse Stiles’ suspicions, and goes back to his normal routine afterwards.

The days slide by. He’s keenly aware of time passing. If Deaton’s estimations were correct, he has between six and ten weeks to get through to Stiles. He counts the days and reminds himself every morning that he has to take it easy, has to let Stiles in at his own pace.

By the third week, he can tell that things actually are getting better. Stiles comes into the store around seven or even six now, instead of creeping in five minutes before Derek is ready to close. He asks to use the shower instead of waiting for Derek to offer, and helps himself to whatever Derek’s purchased for breakfast. The first time Derek had ordered pizza and asked what he wanted, he tried to demur, saying that the plain sandwiches are fine. The second time, he just gives his order.

He doesn’t seem bothered by conversations with Derek, or ask why Derek is interested. So he is making progress.

Stiles, for his part, isn’t. If he’s trying to raise money through dumpster diving, it’s been an abysmal failure so far. Derek can tell he’s getting discouraged, and that’s probably part of why he’s coming home earlier in the evenings. Out of curiosity, he followed him one day, and isn’t surprised to see him going to the high school. He checks on his friends every day, to make sure that they’re all right.

Derek is still thinking over what his next move should be when he realizes that the calendar has provided a very obvious one. When Stiles is slumping around in the morning, getting ready to leave, Derek says, “Don’t forget the store closes at six tonight.”

Stiles half-turns and blinks at him. “Huh? It does?”

“Do you know what the date is?” Derek asks, although it’s obvious that Stiles doesn’t. “It’s Christmas Eve, Stiles.”

“Oh.” Stiles just continues blinking. Derek knows that somewhere in Stiles’ subconscious, he was aware that the holiday was approaching. He’d seen a couple decorated stores on main street, and there are Christmas lights up on some of the trees. So he had known, but obviously hadn’t been keeping track. “Oh, okay.”

“We close at six today and the store is closed tomorrow,” Derek says.

“Oh,” Stiles says again, and suddenly his face twists, like he’s trying to hold back tears. “Okay, great. No problem, super, I’ll see you – ” He pushes out the door without finishing his sentence.

Derek sighs. He hates watching Stiles like this, hates not being able to help him. He reminds himself that he’s getting there. That he _is_ helping, that Stiles has a safe place to sleep and at least two square meals a day, and that things are getting better.

He considers what to do for when Stiles gets back, and decides on very little. He doesn’t want to put up a bunch of decorations around his apartment to remind Stiles of the holiday. He goes back to his book – he’s getting so sick of reading, but it’s that or work out – and waits.

This time, Stiles does duck in just before closing. Derek walks over and locks the door behind him. “Don’t bother cleaning tonight.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, I just – ”

Derek sighs. “Come on. Want to come upstairs, watch a movie?”

“I don’t really . . .” Stiles trails off miserably.

“Look, Stiles,” Derek says, “I know how hard the first Christmas on your own is. This isn’t a Hallmark card. There’s not going to be some big family gathering where my grandmothers dote on you and you get adopted into my family. I’m going to order some Chinese food and watch Christmas movies like the enormous loser that I am, and to be honest, I’d really like some company.”

“Oh . . . okay.” Stiles rubs his eyes. “Yeah, okay, why not, I guess.”

Derek turns out the lights and then heads up the stairs with Stiles behind him. They talk about what food to order and then Stiles just kind of stands there awkwardly while Derek does so. He’s clearly thinking about the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours and how much they’re going to suck. Derek sighs and puts his phone down. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just . . . was thinking about Christmas. We never did a lot with it. My mom was Jewish, and my dad was – _is_ Catholic, or at least he was raised that way, so they didn’t make a big deal out of Christmas. I mean, we had a tree and I got presents but it wasn’t a big thing. Sometimes we would go visit my dad’s brother in San Diego.” Stiles clears his throat. “Your sister isn’t coming up?”

“No. She’s spending this Christmas with her boyfriend’s family.”

“That sucks.”

Derek shrugs. “Yeah. But I’m glad she’s getting along with a new family. At least I won’t have to fight her for the eggnog.”

Stiles laughs a little. “I’ve never liked eggnog, so you’re safe from me, too.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles zones out as they watch Die Hard, a movie he’s seen so many times that he practically has memorized. It _is_ the best Christmas movie, he agrees with Derek on that, but he’s never been able to persuade his father of that. It was true that they had never done a lot for Christmas. Some presents, a big meal, but that was all. He cared far more about the vacation from school than he did the holiday itself.

So why was it that he now couldn’t stop thinking about the holiday, about the so-called meaning of Christmas? What is his father doing with his new family? Do they have a bigger celebration? There are little kids. They probably still believe in Santa Claus. The McCall family had always made a much bigger deal out of Christmas, so if his father had married Melissa, they probably did a lot for it.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until a quiet moment of the movie, when Derek looks over, does a double take, and then grabs the remote. He pauses the movie and says, “You okay?”

“I miss my dad,” Stiles chokes out, and he can’t hold back the tears no matter how hard he tries. “I’m sorry, I just – ”

“Hey,” Derek says softly, and the next thing Stiles knows, Derek has him by the forearm and is pulling him in for a hug. It’s a little stiff and awkward, and Derek pats his back like he has no idea how this works, but Stiles doesn’t care. He presses his face into Derek’s shoulder and lets out sob after sob. He just can’t make them stop. Derek’s awkward patting becomes a more soothing circular rubbing motion.

It takes a long time, but finally Stiles wears himself out and regains control of himself. He pulls away from Derek and says, “Okay, so, that was a little embarrassing.”

Derek shrugs. “Do you think I didn’t bawl my eyes out after my family died? Because if so, I’ve got news for you.”

“It’s hard to picture.”

“Yeah, I guess it probably is.” Derek stands up. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

“Thanks.” Stiles retreats to his own end of the sofa, drawing his knees up to his chest. The TV screen has gone blank, the DVD having turned off after being left on pause for too long. Derek comes back a few moments later with the water and a box of tissues. Stiles blows his nose and then starts sipping the water.

“Look,” Derek says, sitting back down, “I don’t know what happened between you and your father. But I can tell you with pretty much ninety-nine percent certainty that whatever it was, he’ll forgive you. He’d welcome you back into his life with open arms. Hell, he’s probably going nuts wondering where you are, if you’re okay.”

Stiles feels tears sting at his eyes again, and how is that even possible? He should have cried himself out by now. “No, he isn’t. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t even know I exist.”

Derek blinks, looking somewhat taken aback. Then he frowns. “Did you pull a Hermione Granger?”

The reference takes Stiles off guard and makes him laugh, easing some of the weight off his chest. “Uh, yeah, I guess I sort of did. Only instead of a memory spell, I actually altered reality. Or, uh, the genie-sorta-thing that I made a deal with did.”

It takes Derek a long minute to reply. When he does, all he says is, “Why?”

“Because – ” Stiles has to swallow before he can squeeze out the answer. He’s not even sure why he’s telling Derek all of this, but he’s desperate for someone to understand. “Because they were better off without me. My family, my friends. All I ever did was get people hurt, and I just – it’s better for them this way.”

Derek shakes his head. “I have a feeling your dad would beg to differ, and I don’t even know the man.”

“Oh, sure, he would if he knew better, but I – that’s the beauty of it. I took care of that.” Stiles manages to dredge up a smile. “He doesn’t know. To him, it’s like I was never even born. He can’t miss someone he’s never even known, right?”

“So . . .” Derek is frowning. “It’s okay if he’s unhappy . . . as long as he doesn’t know why?”

“He’s not unhappy. The exact opposite. He’s got a great life. I just – I’m happy about that, I am, but even having wished for that, it kind of stings, you know? To see how happy he is without me, to, to be proven _right_ about what a fuckup I am. I’m like a curse. I just, I fucked up the lives of everyone around me. It’s so much better this way.”

Derek lets out a slow breath. “You know, sometimes bad things happen without being anyone’s fault.”

“Sure, I guess.” Stiles gives a shrug. “But I kind of have the evidence otherwise, you know? I mean, I wished for a world without me, and this is what I got, so . . .”

“You don’t think the genie was playing on your expectations?”

Stiles thinks about that. “You know, I really don’t give a fuck,” he finally says. “So the genie made everyone happy because that’s what I subconsciously wished for. Hey, as long as everyone’s alive and happy, I don’t really have any objection.”

“I’m just saying, you’re punishing yourself for things that might not be your fault.”

“I don’t care,” Stiles says, and wipes his eyes again. “If it means that the people I love are happy, I’ll punish myself all I want.” He manages a wan smile. “Besides, this world isn’t so bad. I just have to figure out where I fit in, get myself some stuff that I need. Yeah, it sucks that my dad doesn’t know me and I don’t have any friends anymore, but it’s worth it, you know? Wouldn’t you do the same, if it would bring back your family?”

Derek sighs quietly. “Yeah. I would. In a heartbeat. Which is exactly why I know how pissed off they would be at me for doing it.”

“But they _aren’t_ ,” Stiles says. “Because they don’t know.”

“This is giving me a headache,” Derek says. “If you don’t exist, how can you still be here?”

“I dunno. That’s how it works.”

“Yeah, but how do you know that you didn’t just leave your own world behind and come to some parallel universe?”

Terror freezes Stiles’ stomach. “I – I didn’t – that’s not what it said,” he stammers. He swallows down the fear and forces himself to be rational, to think back, to remember exactly how things had been phrased. “No, it said it was changing the fabric of existence. Of reality. That’s not a parallel universe. That’s a change.”

“Maybe.” Derek sounds dubious. “I’m still not sure how you can be here.”

“I think it’s a paradox thing,” Stiles says. “I mean, because if I didn’t exist _at all_ , I never could have made the wish to begin with.”

“Now my head definitely hurts,” Derek says. “I don’t know, Stiles. I know you’re convinced you did the right thing, but I can’t help but think that this isn’t what your father would want for you.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true.” Stiles thinks about it, then amends, “It’s definitely true. But why does that matter? He’d be willing to sacrifice his happiness to secure mine. So I have the right to sacrifice mine to secure his. Fair’s fair, right?”

“When you put it that way, it is hard to argue,” Derek says. He sighs and rubs a hand through his hair. “What was I like, in your universe?”

“Miserable. You know. Like everyone else.”

Derek’s lips twitch a little at that. “Good to know. Want to go back to the movie?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Derek picks up the remote, then frowns. “What would you have done if I’d suggested _It’s a Wonderful Life_?”

Stiles opens his mouth. It stays open. Then he starts to laugh. It’s a little bit hysterical. Derek joins in a few moments later, and Stiles laughs until his sides ache. Finally, he manages to calm down. “You know, despite everything being a giant clusterfuck, I’m glad you’re here, Derek. I mean. Thanks. For everything.”

“You’re welcome, you idiot,” Derek says, and turns the movie back on before Stiles can protest.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

They spend Christmas watching movies, eating popcorn, and occasionally talking. Stiles is quiet, and Derek doesn’t blame him.

As things go back into the routine they’ve established, Derek begins to think that he made a mistake. How can he talk Stiles into believing that what he did was wrong when he would have done the exact same things in Stiles’ shoes? If he’s not allowed to tell Stiles that the yako tricked him, that none of this is real, what chance does he have?

He’s mentioned Stiles’ guilt issues a few more times, but the yako’s trick has basically convinced Stiles that everything was, in fact, his fault. To be fair, Derek can see why. But the worst part is, that doesn’t even matter. Stiles only cares about his loved ones being happy. How can Derek ask him to return to a world where they’re not? To a world where one of the people he cares about most is dead and gone?

If anything, his talk with Stiles over Christmas seems to have reinvigorated him. He gets back into the dumpster diving and asks Derek if he would mind if he sold some things out of the store. He even drops a few hints about how much easier it would be with a phone, obviously hoping that Derek will offer to buy him one.

As they celebrate the new year with glasses of ginger ale and watch the ball drop, Derek wonders how he’ll ever apologize to Tom Stilinski enough for losing his son.

The worst part is, he’s even starting to enjoy this new world himself. A quiet place of his own, nobody trying to kill him, and Stiles, struggling and heartbroken but _there_ , trying his best and safe from anyone who might want to hurt him. If it weren’t for the fact that he knew his time was limited, knew that Stiles in reality was fading away, he would have been tempted to stay there himself.

None of which gives him any idea about what to do.

In the end, none of it matters.

Stiles is sorting through some of the junk he’s dragged in, counting the money he’s made that week (which comes to twelve dollars), and talking about how he wants to try hitting up some retail stores because he’s heard that’s where to find stuff that’s actually worth money. Derek is only half-listening, doing his own accounts for the day (the bookstore has made a grand total of seventy-eight dollars), and says, “Better be careful if you don’t want your dad to arrest you.”

Stiles’ head whips around. “What?” he snaps, with such force that Derek looks up.

“Uh, didn’t you mention him dragging you in for dumpster diving a few weeks ago?” Derek asks, not sure what’s happening.

“How do you know who my dad is?” Stiles demands.

The world starts to shake, like they’re in an earthquake. There’s a rumble of thunder in the distance. Derek realizes what happened a moment too late and tries to backpedal. “Didn’t you mention it? Your dad being the sheriff?”

“No,” Stiles says, his gaze fixed on Derek, pinning him down like a butterfly to a board. “No, I didn’t, I _never_ did, I was super careful because I didn’t want you deciding to go tell him where I was. I _never_ told you who my dad was so how the hell do you know that?”

“Uh – ” Derek fumbles for an answer.

“You’re not the Derek from this world.” Stiles sucks in a breath. “You’re the Derek from my world. I thought – a few times, you would say stuff about, about your family, and I would think – that sounds just like the Derek I know, but I didn’t – ”

The shaking starts to intensify, and Derek knows he’s losing control of the situation. What had Deaton said? That if Stiles found out the truth, the vision would collapse, that it could take minutes or hours. He takes a deep breath and dives in, coming around the counter and grabbing Stiles by the upper arms, forcing Stiles to look at him. “Stiles,” he says, forcefully enough to make him stop talking. “This isn’t real.”

“Wh – what?” Stiles just stares at him.

“All of this, it isn’t real. The deal you made was with a trickster spirit. You’re not really here, this bookstore doesn’t exist, your father isn’t really married to Melissa – _none of this is real_.”

“I, I don’t,” Stiles stammers, and the world starts to shake so hard that both of them nearly lose their balance.

Derek keeps Stiles on his feet. “Stiles, listen to me. Where did you hide the kitsune tail? We need it.”

“I can’t – ”

“Go get it _right now_ or we’re both dead,” Derek says, and Stiles is too shocked to continue to argue. He scrambles towards the back of the bookstore with Derek’s hands still supporting him and reaches behind one of the bookshelves, pulling out the piece of metal. “Okay. Listen. Stay with me, Stiles.” He takes Stiles’ face in his hands. Stiles is pale, his eyes wide. “Stay with me. You made a wish, right? And you thought the kitsune granted it, but it didn’t. It just made you think it had. Right now, your body is lying in bed with an IV stuck in you to keep you alive. But now that you know the truth, the vision is collapsing. You need to break the tail.”

“But I can’t,” Stiles says, his voice trembling. There’s another huge roll of thunder and Derek looks over to see part of the bookstore collapse, pulled into what looks like some kind of vortex. “I can’t go back there. Derek, you can’t ask me to do that. You can’t ask me to go back to a world where Allison is dead.”

Derek swallows hard and forces himself to be brutal. They just don’t have time for anything else. “Allison being dead is a tragedy. We’ll all mourn her, probably for the rest of our lives. But the world where she’s dead is the _only world there is_ , Stiles. There is no other world. This is just a dream, a vision, and if you don’t break that tail, you’re going to be dead, too.”

“I’d rather be dead,” Stiles says, tears starting down his face. “I’d rather be dead than kill her again.”

“Listen to me, you selfish little fuck!” Derek snaps. “You wishing you didn’t exist and you wishing you were dead are two different things. Picture this! Right now your body is lying in a bed while your father sits next to you, holding your hand, while Scott comes in and out, pacing, because he feels so helpless and he doesn’t know what to do.” Derek risks a glance at the vortex and sees that it’s only about ten feet away. The floor is starting to tilt them into it. He starts to shuffle them away from it, towards the door. He knows without saying how that if he tries to leave the bookstore, there won’t be anything on the outside. “When that whirlpool swallows us, your heart’s going to stop beating. Your brain is going to turn to dust. And your father will still be sitting there with you and he won’t even know what happened. All he’ll know is that you wished you didn’t exist and now he has to live without you! Are you going to do that to him?”

Stiles bites back a sob. “I can’t, I can’t. You can’t ask me.”

“When we realized what you had done, your father sat down looking like someone had just stuck a knife in his gut. He just sat there wondering how you could _possibly_ think he would ever be happy without you. When Deaton told us that one of us could come in after you but there was a good chance we’d die in the attempt, Scott stepped right up and said he would do it. He didn’t hesitate for a heartbeat. He was willing to walk into almost certain death to save you. How are you going to pay them back for that?”

“It doesn’t make any sense!” Stiles says. “Everything – everything was my fault, they – they should hate me, they’re better off without me – ”

“This was not your fault!” Derek shouts. “None of it was your fault, Stiles. Bad things happen. They happen to bad people, they happen to good people. Did you fuck up now and then? Yes. All of us did. I did, Scott did, your dad did – we all fucked up. But you didn’t kill Allison.”

“I – ”

“You _didn’t kill Allison_ ,” Derek says. “You’re operating under this delusion that because you made one stupid mistake – going out into the woods that night with Scott – that everything went to hell. But it’s not like that, Stiles! Do you know what would have happened if you hadn’t? I’d be dead, for one thing, because when Kate shot me, there wouldn’t have been anyone I could turn to for help. But Peter still would have gone after the Argents. He still would have tried to kill Allison. Would she have survived? I don’t know, Stiles. I really don’t. But you can’t say that all of this happened because of you. It happened because of Kate, because of Gerard, because bad people did bad things. Not because good people made a few stupid mistakes.”

Stiles rests his face against Derek’s shoulder, his entire body shaking. The floor is starting to collapse into the vortex, and Derek has backed them all the way to the door.

“Stiles,” Derek says softly, “I know how much it hurts. God, if you’ve never believed anything about me, believe that. I _know_ how much it hurts to lose someone and think it’s your fault. I know that I can’t just make your feelings of grief and guilt go away. It’ll take time. But if you can’t do this for yourself, do it for the people who love you. Because if you never come back from this, they’ll have to live with that every day for the rest of their lives.”

Stiles doesn’t say anything, doesn’t respond. Derek looks at the vortex and feels despair start to creep in. He doesn’t know what else he can say. But then he hears a snap, and then suddenly the world washes white, and he passes out.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It’s been a long night in the Stilinski house, and Tom is dozing despite himself. He’s barely slept in four days, since Derek went into Stiles’ vision. He knows that there’s nothing he can do, but that fact in and of itself is driving him insane. He feels like there must be _something_. Some way to get through to Stiles. But all he can do is sit there and hold his hand.

He’s only peripherally aware of it when Stiles’ hand starts trembling in his own, but then there’s a sudden snapping noise, like a rubber band being let go, and Stiles lurches upright, heaving for breath. “Whoa!” Tom says, nearly falling out of his chair, and grabbing Stiles before he can fall off the bed. “Stiles, can – can you hear me, are you – ”

Stiles turns to look at him, his face pale and lips dry and chapped, tears already starting down his face. “Dad,” he chokes out, and throws himself into his father’s arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh, you’re okay, I’ve got you, none of this was your fault, I’ve got you.” Tom hugs his son as hard as he can, one hand twisting in the back of Stiles’ shirt, the other cradling the back of his neck. He presses his face into the crook of Stiles’ neck and tries to slow his breathing down. When he manages to open his eyes, he sees Derek looking around. He looks a little confused, and then he slowly sits up, pulling his hand free of Stiles’.

The commotion has drawn Scott’s attention, and he barrels into the room, not even stopping to ask what happened before he throws his arms around Stiles from the other side. Stiles turns a little so he can grab at Scott’s wrist, squeezing it tightly.

When Stiles finally pulls away, Tom forces his grip to loosen and let him go. His son looks terrible, but he’s awake and alert and he’ll be okay. He smoothes down Stiles’ hair, presses a kiss into his forehead. Stiles manages a wan, shaky smile. “I, uh . . . I feel really stupid,” he confesses.

“Don’t,” Deaton says from the doorway. “A yako that powerful has tricked hundreds of people. It’s what they do, Stiles.”

“You were trying to fix things,” Scott says. “Nobody blames you for that. Even if, uh, your method left a lot to be desired.”

Stiles snorts despite himself, and Scott starts to laugh, and they both lean into each other, more than a little hysterical.

“Careful, Derek,” Deaton says, as Derek starts to get up. “You’re weaker than you realize. Let me help you.”

Derek nods a little. Stiles looks over, sees the way Deaton gets an arm underneath him, helping him off the bed. “It – it was really you. I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe – maybe it was just like my inner Jiminy Cricket taking the form of the person who’s best at arguing with me.”

Scott snorts again, then hastily says, “I would have gone, but Dr. Deaton said I couldn’t since you had already seen me and it would have caused the vision to collapse.”

“Yeah, well. That’s the only thing that got me out of it anyway. Could’ve saved us some time, maybe,” Stiles says.

Derek winces. “Sorry.”

“No, you know, I don’t envy you. Without me realizing it wasn’t real, I don’t think I . . .” Stiles shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. Thanks, though. I, uh. I’ll let you go get your IV out. Among other things. You probably want a shower or something.”

“It’d be nice,” Derek says.

“Derek,” Tom says, looking up at him. “Thank you.”

Derek just nods.

“You should come over for dinner tomorrow,” Tom adds. “Six o’clock. I’ll let Stiles cook us something healthy.”

At this, everyone laughs.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

When he walks into the cemetery the next day around noon, Stiles isn’t really surprised to see Derek there. He’s sitting beside Allison’s grave, where he’s placed a bouquet of white flowers. Stiles walks over and sits down next to him, and for a long time neither of them say anything.

Finally, Derek breaks the silence. “When I was sixteen, Laura had to talk me off a literal ledge,” he says. “We’d been in New York City for a few months. She was working a lot, and she left me at this bookstore. You’ve seen it. I would sit in the back and try to read, but honestly I hurt so badly that I couldn’t concentrate. Finally, it was just too much. One night I went up to the roof of our apartment building. It was twelve stories. But she found me there before I could jump. She was my alpha, so, you know. She could feel how badly I was hurting.

“I stood up there on that ledge and I told her what had happened with Kate, told her that everything was my fault. She told me she didn’t care. That yes, I had made a mistake and it was stupid, but if I killed myself she’d have to follow me because she’d have nothing left. I hated myself for a really long time. Still do, some days. I wake up and look in the mirror and wonder how I ever could have been so stupid, so blind. But it wasn’t my fault, Stiles. What Kate did wasn’t my fault. Trying to convince you, I think I finally managed to convince myself.”

“Thanks,” Stiles whispers. He’s quiet, looking at the flowers. “For more than just that. For everything. For being so patient with me, and helping me when nobody else could.”

“I told the truth, you know,” Derek says, glancing at him. “When you asked why I was helping you. And I said I had been where you were, been in a place where nobody cared what was going to happen to me, until somebody did. That somebody was you.”

“What?” Stiles is startled at this. “No, I mean, I didn’t really . . .”

“It’s stupid, right?” Derek smiles a little. “I was thinking of the night you kept my head above water at the pool.”

“Well, yeah, what was I gonna do, let you drown?” Stiles asks, flushing pink.

“I might have deserved it, to be honest. But it wasn’t just that. You offered to go with me to save Erica and Boyd, without a second thought. You came back for me that night at the hospital, after Jennifer left me there, to make sure I got out safely.” Derek studies the horizon, not looking at him. “After Laura died, I was pretty sure I was going to be alone forever. You made me think that maybe I wouldn’t be. That’s all.”

“I was pretty much a jerk to you,” Stiles says.

Derek smiles. “Yeah. I know. I was a jerk to you, too.”

Stiles heaves a sigh and studies his hands. “I feel really stupid, you know? Like I should have realized it was all in my head. Everything was so perfect. How could I have not seen it?”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting everyone to be happy,” Derek says. “I mean, you got what you thought you had asked for.”

“Dad and Scott have both told me eighteen times that they could never be happy without me.”

“Well,” Derek says, with some reserve, “now you know that.”

Stiles glances at him and then smiles. “Yeah. I guess now I do. Thanks, sour wolf. So you’re coming over for dinner, right? I’m making lasagna. It’s fatty as hell but I figure my dad deserves it after what I put him through this week.”

“I love lasagna.”

“Okay. Great.”

They both go quiet for a long minute.

“So, this morning I sat down and started looking through property ads to see if there are any shops downtown for sale,” Derek finally says. “I thought it might be nice, having a bookstore. Might need someone to sweep my floors now and then, you know. Or watch movies with me.”

“I hope you don’t think you’re ever spending a Christmas alone again.”

“I don’t,” Derek says, smiling. He reaches out and twines his fingers through Stiles. Stiles squeezes back, hard.

After a few minutes of silence, Stiles says, “I really miss her, Derek.”

Derek squeezes his hand. “I know. But she died fighting for what she believed in. That doesn’t make it okay. But it means that we can’t stop fighting. We can’t change the fact that she died, can’t bring her back. All we can do is honor her memory. We’re only given one world, Stiles. We have to make the best of it. But we don’t have to do it alone.”

Stiles nods. “Thanks.”

“Come on.” Derek stands up, tugging Stiles to his feet. “I’ll take you home.”

It’s been eleven days since Allison had died, and Stiles can feel things sliding back into some sort of normal. It’s not the best thing he’s ever felt. But it’s not the worst, either.

 

~fin~


End file.
